dave’s blog

divers dig for signs of columbus ship

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:44:15 -0400

We set up base camp on the very beach Columbus landed to establish his first Spanish settlement in 1493. The survey team calibrates their magnetic resonance equipment while the dive team gets the inflatable into the water. Divers tested the dredge pump yesterday and it works great. Bill fashions a base plate for the pump by mounting it on a 4x8 piece of plywood. Six of us move it down to the water where it is lashed to a traditional Dominican fishing boat. I don’t know...this looks kind of tentative! Others wonder the same thing, but the local pilot of the craft isn’t concerned. We’ll see...

I join the survey team aboard the Boston Whaler. Rob is the captain and he guides the craft to follow a pre-plotted grid...not easy with waves and wind. Steve throws in a magnetic sensor that looks sort of like a heat-seeking missile and Andy immediately receives readings on his laptop. They’ll continue this activity for several days until the entire inlet is covered. The GPS guided software can later return divers within inches of any anomalies of interest. Several blips indicating that iron is below show up before we return to base for lunch.

After a plate full of rice and beans, chicken, and fried plantains, I ask to follow the dredge team. They’re investigating a spot of interest identified by researchers a few years ago. The divers bring me along, which isn’t a small feat. The inflatable Zodiac sits low in the water as six of us and several hundred pounds of dive equipment head into the inlet. What an image! A local fishing boat top-heavy with the pump leads a low, bent inflatable with six people. Not a very sophisticated picture! But everything arrives safely enough!

Wow, as if the work weren’t hard enough, the bottom silts up almost immediately from the slightest touch and the dredger works mostly in blackout conditions. I get lost while only a few feet from the hole and have to surface to locate the divers’ bubbles and descend again. We all learn to follow the pump hoses and keep our hands on them until we find the end. Sometimes I place a hand on the dredge diver’s tank. If I let go and drift even thee feet away, I won’t be able to find him again.

I exited the silt cloud long enough to find the original 3/4” PVC pipe Charlie drove into the bottom three years ago after making a preliminary magnetic survey. It’s covered in plant life and in the middle sits a dead crab...making a kind of macabre image for X-marks-the-spot.

This afternoon Ramon is operating the dredge. He’s an experienced cave diver from Bonaire and may tolerate the low visibility better than most. He locks his feet around a PVC pipe driven near the hot spot and, thusly anchored, resumes sucking a tremendous volume of mud from the growing hole. Before I leave, he has increased its size to about 10 feet across and 7 feet deep. At this point, the mud stops and sand appears. This may be a sign divers are getting closer to finding parts of a ship Columbus lost to a storm. Six to nine supply ships were anchored here when Spanish were awed by the power of a weather phenomena they’d not previously experienced–the hurricane.

Time is running out. It’s almost time to start packing up camp and moving everything back to the capital. If divers don’t come across ship material this time round, the dredge hole is a good start and operations can resume in a few months. In the meantime, the magnetic survey is the most comprehensive ever undertaken here and the data will surely help the team zero in on remnants of the fleet of 1495.

a cush gig in the caribbean?

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:00:13 -0400

In case you’d find it the least bit interesting to learn what it really takes to do field research in underwater science, I dare you to watch this five minute movie. Where are the slo-mo shots of scuba divers jumping into the water? The sun bathers? Fabulous night life?

Much of any day is spent schlepping thousands of pounds of equipment and people to and from research locations. The movie above covers a 30 hour period. At the end researchers are parched, hungry, bruised, scraped, sprained, and sunburned. Then the real work is supposed to begin!

So you might imagine infrastructure and logistics planning is a key element of these trips. Charlie relies largely on Nicole and Bill to make everything fall together...and it is not an easy task! These guys are pros at what they do and my hat’s off to them!

last day: teachers tour conservation lab

Fri, 9 Jul 2010 21:10:08 -0400

(entry published July 12. There’s no cell and little internet where I am now. daily entries will continue as opportunities come to upload)

It’s the last day for teachers visiting the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Welcome to the oldest euro-american city! It’s also a day that brings all of the disparate experiences of the week together as these educators are visiting the Dominican federal undersea conservatory. The operation is impressive but, at first, it’s the structure housing it that is so imposing. This is the unfinished prison and personal bunker of 1960’s dictator General Turrijo. He was harsh and not well-liked...and was fortunately deposed before he could hole up in this place. Stigmatized, the location went unused for many years. But today’s professional conservationists appreciate the reinforced concrete bunkers for their ability to moderate temperatures and provide secure working space for some of the country’s most important relics from the past. I suppose this is a better outcome for both these artifacts and the political prisoners that would have otherwise been housed here.

Teachers see first-hand cookware, weaponry, and ship’s rigging used by the explorers and merchants of 1492-1900. Charlie lays out the stories behind these artifacts and teachers learn how to recognize outgoing and incoming supplies and merchandise. There’s Ming china, silverware, coins, jewelry, tools and weapons that Europeans had made or acquired...some restored so well they looked like they could be used today.

Geoffrey explains the impact of colonialism on native Taino and shows very rare artifacts to illustrate. One of the impressive finds is a Taino weapon that otherwise only exists in Spanish journal descriptions...and another is a small wooden dagger-like implement that was used to induce vomiting. So, one tool to smash heads in, and another to make you puke. Nice artifacts!

One of his favorites, though, is a chocolate whipping device. It looks almost like a fountain pen and ink well. Geoffrey explains that Taino royalty liked its chocolate! Well, at least I share that in common! Strange, though, that it didn’t occur to folks then to add sugar, so the paste was very bitter. The chocolate “high” must have nevertheless been enough to keep it appealing.

The grade school teachers seem to be fascinated and ask good questions. Hours turn into minutes, however, and it’s soon time for them to board the bus for the journey back to the hotel, two hours away. There will be just enough time to pack up and make final arrangements for the morning flight back to the states. I overhear as they review their favorite moments with each other, and it looks to me like they will return to the US with a piece of the Dominican Republic in their hearts and minds...experiences that will likely light up grade school students’ imagination as to what life was like during a time of massive change that began in 1492.

I’m heading next to Isabella, on the north side of the island. That’s where it all started. Admiral Cristobal Colon dropped off his first full-time european population there in 1493. I’m going to follow IU scientists to that remote region of the DR because they hope to find evidence of Columbus’ ships there...still lying on the bottom of the ocean near the long-abandoned village...

capt. kidd history comes to life

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 18:40:25 -0400

Our grade school teachers have arrived at Catalina Island while the morning waters are still calm. This will be the first time most of the group has been in an ocean! Everyone jumps in to see the twenty-eight cannon (called “guns” when deployed on a ship) left in the hold of the Cara Merchant by Capt. Kidd’s crew. The artifacts are covered in organic material and it takes a few moments for the snorkelers to see the significance of the green and brown mounds. Rick asks me to identify the bed of anchors the main pile sits upon and I drop down to outline a fluke and whole anchor with my finger. Capt. Kidd had written that he put the ship’s original cannon on a bed of broken anchors. Maybe space was tight...maybe weight distribution defined this spot in the hull...maybe it was a way to keep the cannon above the bilge water. In any case, this detail was significant and helped prove that this was indeed William Kidd’s last ship.

Rick gives me the high-sign and dives down to touch one of the cannon.

Isabel is joining us today. She’s in charge of the conservatory lab back in the capital and is very familiar with the artifacts that have been brought in. But she’s not fond of the water and has never visited the site. Our crew bolsters her confidence and helps her swim so she can survey the location first-hand. It looks to me that she is proud of the feat afterwards.

The beauty of the sea is aggravated by its hazards, as a few of the swimming party are stung by jelly fish. I also received an annoyed sting when I bumped into fire coral while distracted with videotaping. I guess the teachers are getting an authentic exposure to this ocean environment.

Claudia and Nicole make a quick visual survey of the biology around the Kidd site. Claudia had led a more formal survey last year and is quite familiar with the life forms that occupy this shallow shelf and the nearby reef. Afterwards she tells me the area is certainly evolving and under stress. Could be the result of several things...climate change, overfishing, and human activity. Visitors can be harsh -- several elkhorn coral branches are broken and even our nature reserve buoy has disappeared because the rope has been severed by a boat prop. Claudia and I both notice that the fan coral that make up the “ears” on cannon eight are fighting parasites...not so evident last year. Scientists will watch this closely so the park’s health can be properly managed, but it may be impossible to fight global trends in the ocean’s evolution.

This is our last day on the east side of the island and a perfect end to the excursion. These educators have now personally observed evidence of Dominican history from 5000 years ago to 1699 BC and no doubt have a renewed appreciation of just what field research can be like.

Tomorrow the history lesson continues as they travel to the capital, Santo Domingo to walk the same streets as Columbus, Cortez, and Pizzaro...

padre efforts bring answers, questions

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 18:38:15 -0400

Divers continued recovery efforts at Padre Nuestro cave today. Pushing a bit farther to the site of the last primate skull discovery, Jessica, Lynn, and Randalyn work meticulously to find every artifact they can without disturbing the silt bottom, which can make conditions useless for recovery, not to mention make diving dangerous. Jessica made both sloth and primate discoveries here before and has a particularly trained eye for skeleton parts that are otherwise easy to miss in the muck. She picks up one item after another in what looked like featureless terrain to me.

This isn’t the kind of diving for the feint of heart, as spaces in the farther reaches of the cavern can get tight. My body chafes against rock. Tank & regulator occasionally get caught in the stalactites, causing momentary feelings of entrapment. It helps to be driven by an objective...and we also benefit from detailed briefings beforehand.

With just the proper buoyancy, I don’t have to actually move my flippers, which keeps silt from rising. I can inhale to rise and exhale to fall...head down to glide forward gently. I’m hovering without effort to shoot some of the footage...but as we get into smaller channels I have to hold on to rock formations to be steady. Wait a minute...why? Later, at the surface, we all share stories of how we seemed less able to steady ourselves and came to realize that we were experiencing a very slight current in the narrow channels. This discovery influences the scientists’ assessment of the area as it’s now possible that some of the artifacts have moved farther from their original location than expected.

In the meantime, I’m amazed to see six divers crammed inside of a sub-chamber as they contribute their light to the effort. Jessica occasionally motions me to move closer and I begin to realize that the team relies on my video floodlight to see more clearly. Seems best to hand it over and I am gratified by a new view of their work when I am suspended in darkness and observe the glow of activity. Good thing I changed the batteries in my spare penlight before the dive!

At the surface are several archaeologists and geologists anxious to see the contents of the numerous plastic bags that have arrived. The team has now found bones belonging to perhaps twenty sloths. And the bone experts say that they are of two different species! Both are extinct, now.

In a most unexpected development, Jessica finds bones that belong to yet another primate. these are also small, but they aren’t of the same species as the skull she found last year. Scientists are going to be excited about this! There are other smaller bones, too...perhaps from rodents and others yet to be identified (turtle? frog?). The experts debate what it all means...and, along the way, discover that the animals that made this cave part of their neighborhood were more diverse than originally thought.

Paul is a geologist interested in creating an accurate timeline for Padre Nuestro. He seeks a stalagmite, the pointy things in cave that stick up, not hang from the ceiling. He says he can analyze the layers of mineral deposits by measuring their slightly different radioactive half-lives, and tell us more about the history of this underground aquifer. A previous effort to knock one free failed, but one of the divers finds a stalagmite lying on the floor right next to where it was broken off by falling rock. It still fit its stump perfectly. Serendipity! Paul gets his stalagmite after all!

teachers descend into chicho cavern

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 18:37:33 -0400

It’s once again hot and sunny as we board trucks and vans for Chicho Cavern. This is my favorite place on the island and I’ve been lucky to visit on every trip. The eleven grade school teachers, however, have never before considered entering such a place. But each one mustered the courage to ignore snakes and tarantulas, hike through the brush, descend down treacherous slope, and not only enter the huge, dark cavern, but actually lower themselves into the underground lake found there.

Beforehand, Geoffrey gives them a brief talk on the ancient carvings of whimsical faces found at the entrance. He also explains how people have likely used the site as a water source for eons. Even today it is easy to spot clay shards from broken water jugs. And just inside the entrance are carvings of what look like the sun...made in an almost contemporary cartoon style. Teenagers may have chiseled these for fun five thousand years ago. Or, maybe, the carvings have a religious significance.

It’s muggy and the cave starts to look more appealing as we feel its cooler temperatures. The teachers reach the water’s edge at the bottom and it doesn’t take long for the first of them to jump into the clear, blue water. The others follow. The cave grows more quiet, I think, because the snorkelers are amazed at both the natural beauty of this place and at their own bravado to bond with it. After several minutes, the group becomes more jovial, as they revel in the unique experience and respond to the respite from the sweaty weather above.

They say you aren’t truly connected to a foreign place until you are immersed in it. Today provided this opportunity in a very literal way and I suspect these travelers will always remember the time they swam in the crystal clear waters of Chicho Cavern.